Tag: ecology

  • Eco-Idea: Solar powered Bit-Stage

    Yesterday was Liberation Day in The Netherlands. Because of Liberation Day (or ‘Bevrijdingsdag’ as we call it), there a lot of free open-air music festivals in parks all across the Netherlands to celebrate our liberty. Since the weather was awesome and there was free live music, I had to be there. The coolest thing I saw at the festival in Utrecht was not any artist in particular but this thing:

    Solar powered Bit-Stage

    What you are seeing right here is a DJ booth, including 4 speakers with good sound, on a car, all powered by solar panels! What a great eco-friendly idea! I like going to free parties, but often wonder about the effect or impact all these parties have on the environment. Especially parties in forests or in nature attended by a lot of eco-loving people. It always seemed a bit hypocritical to me to claim to love nature, yet cause such ecological ruckus.

    This stage offers what seems to be an ‘eco-friendly’ option for parties and quite possibly carbon neutral. I also found two videos of the stage live in action yesterday at the festival. You can choose either funky or Balkan.

    Apparently the car’s batteries can also be charged by pedaling. Cool!

    More info here.

  • URGENT ALERT – climate-wrecking at Bali

    I just signed an emergency petition trying to help save the climate talks going on right now, and it would be great if you could join me. The most important global warming meeting since Kyoto is happening right now in Bali. 192 countries are meeting to discuss what comes next – but they’re in crisis.

    Negotiators were nearing agreement on cuts by 2020–a step which the scientists say is needed to avert the worst ravages of global warming, and which will help to bring China and the developing world onboard. But then the news broke: the US, Canada and Japan rejected any mention of such cuts.

    We can’t let three governments hold the world to ransom, by vetoing a real solution to the climate crisis. Bali is the opportunity we’ve been waiting for to start working toward real climate action, and we can’t let it pass by.

    The campaign will be delivered direct to summit delegates, through stunts and in media advertisements, so our voices will actually be heard. But we need a lot of us, fast, to join in if we’re going to make a difference. Just click on the link to add your own name now:

    http://www.avaaz.org/en/bali_emergency/

    Thanks!

    PS Avaaz, the organisation hosting the petition, are very serious — they host the Fossil Awards held by hundreds of NGOs at the summit

  • Taking Action Against Climate Change, the best choice

    In the whole climate change debate (it’s ridiculous it has to be a debate), I decided that the possible cost of NOT taking action, would FAR outweigh the cost of taking action NOW. Actually, what would be so bad about preventing climate change? Living in a cleaner, healthier world? The cities wouldn’t be so filled with smog, there would be less polution, no more oil wars… Sounds a lot better.

    Anyway, the following video argues the same thing, but in a way that’s a bit more digestible than my elaborate theories.

    [youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ]

  • A Manifesto For A New Environmentalism

    By way of the Survival Acres Blog:

    “Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, like Silent Spring, was considered powerful because it marshaled the facts into an effective (read: apocalyptic) story. But, ironically, for more than seven years, research that environmentalists have privately conducted on attitudes toward global warming has found the opposite: Cautionary tales and narratives of eco-apocalypse tend to provoke fatalism, conservatism, and survivalism among voters–not the rational embrace of environmental policies. This research is consistent with extensive social-science research that strongly correlates fear, rising insecurity, and pessimism about the future with resistance to change.

    In promoting the inconvenient truth that humans must limit their consumption and sacrifice their way of life to prevent the world from ending, environmentalists are not only promoting a solution that won’t work, they’ve discouraged Americans from seeing the big solutions at all. For Americans to be future-oriented, generous, and expansive in their thinking, they must feel secure, wealthy, and strong.” (more…)

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